Bridging the Domain Gap in Satellite Pose Estimation: A Self-Training Approach Based on Geometrical Constraints
Open accessAbstract
Recently, unsupervised domain adaptation in satellite pose estimation has gained increasing attention, aiming at alleviating the annotation cost for training deep models. To this end, we propose a self-training framework based on the domain-agnosticgeometrical constraints. Specifically, we train a neural network to predict the 2D keypoints of a satellite and then use PnP to estimate the pose. The poses of target samples are regarded as latent variables to formulate the task as a minimization problem. Furthermore, we leverage fine-grained segmentation to tackle the information loss issue caused by abstracting the satellite as sparse keypoints. Finally, we iteratively solve the minimization problem in two steps: pseudo-label generation and network training. Experimental results show that our method adapts well to the target domain. Moreover, our method won the 1st place on thesunlamptask of the second international Satellite Pose Estimation Competition.
Verified 2026-10-08 · 1 reference not checked yet
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
This paper proposes a self-training unsupervised domain adaptation framework for satellite pose estimation that exploits domain-agnostic geometrical constraints from keypoint projection and mask rendering. It iteratively generates pseudo labels and trains a keypoint-and-mask network, reporting strong SPEED+ results and a 1st-place finish on the sunlamp task of SPEC2021.
Key findings
- The full framework’s best ablation model \(G_5\) after round 2 achieved lightbox \(E_t = 0.2039\) m, \(E_q = 10.5052^\circ\), \(S = 0.2205\), and sunlamp \(E_t = 0.0963\) m, \(E_q = 4.6960^\circ\), \(S = 0.0988\).
- Fine-grained segmentation helped: at round 0, model \(G^0_5\) “significantly reduces the estimation error by nearly 30% and 50% in terms of score \(S\) for both domains” compared with the binary-mask variant.
- In the SPEC2021 comparison, the authors’ entry (lava1302) reported lightbox \(S_t = 0.0464\), \(S_q = 0.1163\), \(S = 0.1627\), and sunlamp \(S_t = 0.0069\), \(S_q = 0.0476\), \(S = 0.0545\); it won 1st place on the sunlamp task and 3rd place on the lightbox task.
- Source-only validation showed a large domain gap: the authors’ method scored \(S = 0.04\) on synthetic validation but \(S = 2.38\) on lightbox and \(S = 2.87\) on sunlamp.
Methods
- Experiments use the SPEED+ dataset with the Tango spacecraft: 59,960 labeled synthetic images, 6,740 lightbox images, and 2,791 sunlamp images; the two UDA tasks are synthetic→lightbox and synthetic→sunlamp. Metrics follow SPEC2021, with rotation error \(E_q\), translation error \(E_t\), normalized scores, and thresholds \(\theta_q = 0.169^\circ\), \(\theta_t = 2.173 \times 10^{-3}\).
- The network predicts 2D keypoint heatmaps and fine-grained masks; poses are estimated via PnP. The backbone is HRFormer-S with 7.8M parameters, with ASPP-based heatmap and mask heads and a discriminator. Training alternates two steps: fix pseudo labels and train the network; fix the network, optimize target poses, and generate pseudo labels, using confidence threshold \(N_{th}=8\).
- Ablation validation uses manually annotated 100 lightbox and 50 sunlamp images. Training uses 3 rounds: pretraining for 12 epochs at learning rate 0.001 with batch size 5, then 10 epochs at learning rate 0.0005 for later rounds.
Limitations
- The paper states that only predicted heatmaps are used to generate pseudo poses, while predicted masks are ignored.
- The paper states that the sparse keypoint representation can make pose estimation less stable when keypoints are invisible due to truncation, low light, or high reflection.
- The paper states that the projection function \(F\) and rendering function \(R\) are non-differentiable and performed offline; future work is needed for differentiable rendering and online self-training/pose refinement.
- The text also makes evident that target pose labels are unavailable, so ablation validation relies on manually annotated 100/50 target images, limiting evaluation scale.
Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.
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Cites
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Claims the paper makes
0 of 14 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged
- Findingreasoning
Models G4 (without geometrical constraints) show degraded performance compared to G5 (with geometrical constraints) in terms of three metrics on both domains.
“In terms of three metrics on both domains, models G 1 4 and G 2 4 show degraded performance compared to G 1 5 and G 2 5 , respectively.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Findingown data
Model G3 benefits from the binary segmentation task.
“while G 0 3 benefits from the binary segmentation task.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim - Findingown data
Replacing the transformer-based backbone with HRNet drops pose estimation performance from 0.221/0.099 to 0.253/0.163 on lightbox/sunlamp in terms of score S.
“the pose estimation performance drops from 0.221/0.099to 0.253/0.163on lightbox/sunlamp in terms of score S.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim - Findingreasoning
Deep models fully-supervised by synthetic images usually show deteriorated performance when deployed in real scenarios due to the inherent discrepancy between real and synthetic images.
“Due to the inherent discrepancy between real and synthetic images, the deep models that are fully-supervised by synthetic images usually show deteriorated performance when being deployed in real scenarios.”
- Also stated in: § C. Source-only Validation · boosted
“However, all these methods generalize less to the real images.It demonstrates that the domain gap can lead to significant performance degradation.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Also stated in: § C. Source-only Validation · boosted
- Findingown data
Model G5 shows the highest accuracy by predicting the fine-grained masks.
“Moreover, G 0 5 shows the highest accuracy by predicting the fine-grained masks.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
- Findingown data
The self-training framework can promote model performance for the UDA task in satellite pose estimation.
“This demonstrates that the self-training framework can promote model performance for the UDA task in satellite pose estimation.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Findingnone given
Model G3 achieves more accurate pose estimation results than model G2 in all rounds except the last one in terms of total score S.
“Model G 3 achieves more accurate pose estimation results than model G 2 in all rounds except the last one in terms of total score S.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim - Findingnone given
The proposed method significantly improves the accuracy of satellite pose estimation without using real annotations.
“(3) Our method significantly improves the accuracy of satellite pose estimation without using real annotations.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Findingown data
Our method surpasses KRN [13] trained using real annotations by more than half in terms of score S.
“More importantly, our method surpasses KRN [13] trained using real annotations by more than half in terms of score S.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [13] Park, 2019, Towards robust learning-based pose estimation of noncooperative spacecraft
Not checked in the free run.
- Findingreasoning
At round 0, model G5 reduces estimation error by nearly 30% and 50% in terms of score S for both domains.
“When round = 0, model G 0 5 significantly reduces the estimation error by nearly 30% and 50% in terms of score S for both domains.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Findingown data
The proposed method adapts well to the target domain.
“Experimental results show that our method adapts well to the target domain.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
In the first step of iterative optimization, the minimization problem is equivalent to training the neural network using labeled source samples and pseudo-labeled target samples.
“It is equal to train the neural network using the labeled source samples and the pseudo-labeled target samples.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Premisenone given
Given a pose, the source and target images are sampled from different distributions.
“However, given a pose consisting of R and t, the source and target images are sampled from different distributions, P (I s |R s , t s ) ̸ = P (I t |R s , t s )(2)”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
The heatmaps in the source and target domain have the same distribution.
“By combining Eq. ( 1), Eq. ( 15), and Eq. ( 16), we can get the conclusion that the heatmaps in the source and target domain have the same distribution, i.e., P (H s ) = P (H t )(17)”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim- The authors state this as an assumption: The poses in the source and target domains are sampled from the same distribution.
- Interpretationreasoning
The i.i.d. assumption is violated, which is referred to as the domain shifts in satellite pose estimation.
“Equation 3 shows that the independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) assumption is violated, which is referred to as the domain shifts in satellite pose estimation.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
The geometrical constraint provided by the projection function F is domain-agnostic.
“Therefore, the geometrical constraint provided by the projection function F is domain-agnostic.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
The similar conclusion that P(Y_s) = P(Y_t) also holds for the rendering function R.
“What'more, the similar conclusion also holds for the rendering function R, i.e., P (Y s ) = P (Y t ).”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
In the second step, the minimization problem is equivalent to optimizing the target poses to minimize the loss by simultaneously aligning the heatmaps and masks generated using functions F and R with the ones predicted by the network.
“It is equal to optimize the target poses to minimize the loss, by simultaneously aligning the heatmaps and masks generated using functions F and R with the ones predicted by the network.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Premisecitation
PnP-based methods significantly outperform direct regression in monocular satellite pose estimation.
“As suggested by Kisantal et al. [11], the PnP-based methods significantly outperform direct regression in monocular satellite pose estimation.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [11] source
Not checked in the free run.
- Interpretationreasoning
When conditioned on the satellite pose, the heatmap distributions in source and target domains are the same.
“Therefore, when conditioned on the satellite pose, the heatmap distributions in source and target domains are the same.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
Masks contain domain-agnostic information that can be used to align the source and target samples by adversarial training.
“These masks contain domainagnostic information, which can be used to align the source and target samples by adversarial training.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationnone given
For the classification loss L_m, there is a trivial solution by ignoring all pseudo heatmaps, i.e., T_s = {0}.
“However, for the classification loss L m , there is a trivial solution by ignoring all pseudo heatmaps, i.e., T s = {0}.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
If the poses of the satellite in the source and target domains are equal, the heatmaps in both domains are the same.
“Since P and K are constant, if the poses of the satellite in the source and target domain are equal, the heatmaps in both domains are the same.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
Given a pose, the locations of keypoints and satellite masks are the same in different domains, referred to as the domain-agnostic geometrical constraints.
“Therefore, given a pose, the locations of keypoints and the satellite masks are the same in different domains, which are referred to as the domain-agnostic geometrical constraints.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationown data
Multi-task learning strategies are effective.
“This demonstrates the effectiveness of our multi-task learning strategies.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Premisereasoning
Several UDA approaches are not specifically designed for UDA in satellite pose estimation because the domain-agnostic geometrical constraints are not fully explored.
“Nonetheless, these methods are not specifically designed for UDA in satellite pose estimation, since the domain-agnostic geometrical constraints are not fully explored.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 6 sources checked- cites [20] source
Not checked in the free run.
- cites [21] source
Not checked in the free run.
- cites [23] source
Not checked in the free run.
- cites [24] source
Not checked in the free run.
- cites [25] Long, 2016, Unsupervised domain adaptation with residual transfer networks
Not checked in the free run.
- cites [26] source
Not checked in the free run.
- Interpretationown data
Adversarial training is effective for satellite pose estimation.
“These results demonstrate the effectiveness of adversarial training.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Interpretationreasoning
The projection function F provides the same geometrical constraints in the source and target domains because the source and target samples share the same P and K.
“which provides the same geometrical constraints in the source and target domains, since the source and target samples share the same P and K.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim - Premisereasoning
In UDA for satellite pose estimation in SPEC2021, only the environmental settings differ across domains while the satellite structure and camera parameters are the same.
“For UDA in satellite pose estimation in SPEC2021, only the environmental settings are different across domains while the satellite structure and the camera parameters are the same (as shown in Fig. 1).”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
- May combine two claims. 25
- Classified as probably not a substantial claim. 10
- The quote only partly states this claim. 5
May combine two claims.
Findingown dataReplacing the transformer-based backbone with HRNet reduces running time but increases parameter sizes and memory consumption.
“Although the running time is shorter at the expense of larger parameter sizes and memory consumption”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
FindingreasoningModel G2 has larger heatmap losses but achieves better pose estimation accuracy than model G0.
“Although model G 0 2 has larger heatmap losses, it achieves better pose estimation accuracy than model G 0 0 .”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
Findingown dataOn the sunlamp domain, our approach outperforms all other methods in terms of translation and rotation scores, taking the 1st place in the challenge.
“On the sunlamp domain, our approach outperforms all other methods in terms of translation and rotation scores, taking the 1st place in the challenge.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
FindingreasoningModel G0 overfits more to source samples and generalizes less to target images, because it is only trained using source data.
“On each domain, model G 0 0 overfits more to source samples and generalizes less to target images, because it is only trained using source data.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
Findingown dataOur method and HigherHRNet+EPnP obtain the best performance on the synthetic images, illustrating that heatmap-based keypoints regression is capable of fitting the training data.
“Our method and HigherHRNet [14]+EPnP [14] obtain the best performance on the synthetic images, illustrating that heatmap-based keypoints regression is capable of fitting the training data.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim0 of 1 sources checked- cites [14] source
Not checked in the free run.
Probably not a substantial claim: may not pass S1 (asserted), S3 (load-bearing), S4 (based). May combine two claims.
Findingnone givenUsing the proposed self-training framework, model G5 achieves the best pose estimation results in all metrics and on all tasks.
“Moreover, using the proposed self-training framework, model G 2 5 achieves the best pose estimation results in all metrics and on all tasks.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
Findingown dataOn the lightbox domain, our approach shows competitive performance and has won the 3rd place in the challenge.
“On the lightbox domain, our approach shows competitive performance and has won the 3rd place in the challenge.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
FindingreasoningModel G5 performs output-level adaptation by introducing fine-grained segmentation, resulting in the smallest losses and the best pose estimation accuracy on each domain.
“In contrast, G 0 5 performs output-level adaptation by introducing fine-grained segmentation, resulting in the smallest losses and the best pose estimation accuracy on each domain.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
Findingnone givenThe proposed method won the 1st and the 3rd place on two leaderboards of the second international Satellite Pose Estimation Competition.
“Moreover, our method won the 1st and the 3rd place on two leaderboards of the second international Satellite Pose Estimation Competition 3 , respectively.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing).
Findingnone givenThe proposed method won the 1st place on the sunlamp task of the second international Satellite Pose Estimation Competition.
“Moreover, our method won the 1st place on the sunlamp task of the second international Satellite Pose Estimation Competition.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimThe quote only partly states this claim.
Findingown dataModel G1 always achieves the largest MSEs on lightbox and sunlamp domains.
“Note that, model G 0 1 always achieves the largest MSEs on lightbox and sunlamp domains”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing). May combine two claims.
FindingreasoningThe increase in running time from adding the upsampling layer is only about 0.35%, which is negligible, because the upsampling module and prediction heads are very simple.
“However, the increase in running time is only about 0.35% (which is negligible) since the upsampling module and the prediction heads are very simple.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims. The quote only partly states this claim.
Findingown dataAdding an upsampling layer to increase feature resolution by a scaling factor 2 significantly improves pose estimation at the expense of increased computation.
“We observe significant improvements of pose estimation at the expense of increased computation.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
Interpretationown dataFine-grained segmentation can effectively improve domain adaptation performance, and thus prevent the optimization of Eq. (11) converging at local optima.
“It illustrates that the fine-grained segmentation can effectively improve the domain adaptation performance, and thus prevent the optimization of Eq. ( 11) converging at local optima.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S4 (based).
Premisenone givenFine-grained masks provide rich dense descriptions with domain-agnostic structural context.
“To tackle the above problem, we note that the fine-grained masks in Fig. 1 provide rich dense descriptions with domainagnostic structural context.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
Interpretationnone givenSparse keypoints stand for only semantic parts of the satellite, and such sparse representation leads to a significant loss of information that hampers knowledge transfer across domains.
“Such sparse representation leads to a significant loss of information, which hampers knowledge transfer across domains.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing).
InterpretationreasoningA smaller N_th encourages more estimated poses to be used to generate pseudo labels for model training.
“A smaller N th encourages more estimated poses to be used to generate pseudo labels for model training.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims.
Interpretationnone givenOur model can handle intense imaging noise, complicated illuminations, surface reflection, and pose variations.
“Note that, our model can handle intense imaging noise, complicated illuminations, surface reflection, and pose variations.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimMay combine two claims. The quote only partly states this claim.
InterpretationreasoningWith geometrical constraints, models G5 are trained using more clean and more accurate pseudo labels and thus show superior performance.
“With the geometrical constraints, models G 1 5 and G 2 5 are trained using more clean and more accurate pseudo labels and thus show superior performance.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningThe heatmap-based representation of sparse keypoints introduces severe information loss, making the optimization process prone to converging at local optima and leading to deteriorated performance.
“However, the heatmapbased representation of sparse keypoints introduces severe information loss.Consequently, the optimization process is prone to converging at local optima, leading to deteriorated performance.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
PremisereasoningSince annotations for lightbox and sunlamp domains are not released, there are two UDA tasks with respect to SPEED+: synthetic→lightbox and synthetic→sunlamp.
“Since the annotations for lightbox and sunlamp domains are not released, there are two UDA tasks with respect to SPEED+, including synthetic→lightbox and synthetic→sunlamp.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
PremisecitationPrevious satellite pose estimation approaches represent a satellite as a set of 2D keypoints and then estimate the satellite pose using PnP algorithms.
“Meanwhile, previous satellite pose estimation approaches [12], [15] represent a satellite as a set of 2D keypoints, and then estimate the satellite pose using the perspective-n-point (PnP) algorithms [27].”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 3 sources checkedMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningThe mask head in model G5 provides more fine-grained predictions and thus effectively enhances structural constraints and contextual information.
“The key reason is that the mask head in model G 5 provides more fine-grained predictions and thus effectively enhances structural constraints and contextual information.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
PremisecitationThe SPEED+ dataset comprises images of the Tango spacecraft from the PRISMA mission, consisting of three distinct domains: synthetic, lightbox, and sunlamp.
“The SPEED+ [22] dataset comprises images of the Tango spacecraft from the PRISMA [49] mission, consisting of three distinct domains, i.e., synthetic, lightbox, and sunlamp.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checkedMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningLeveraging fine-grained segmentation as an auxiliary task has positive impacts on 2D keypoints regression, resulting in better performance of satellite pose estimation across domains.
“Therefore, leveraging fine-grained segmentation as an auxiliary task has positive impacts on 2D keypoints regression, resulting in better performance of satellite pose estimate across domains.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningThe fine-grained mask provides dense representation, while the keypoints heatmap is sparse and leads to significant information loss.
“The fine-grained mask provides dense representation, while the keypoints heatmap is sparse and leads to significant information loss.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimMay combine two claims.
InterpretationreasoningThe rendering function R provides the same geometrical constraints on source and target samples because the 3D mesh of the satellite and the camera parameters are the same in different domains.
“Similar to the projection function F, the rendering function R also provides the same geometrical constraints on source and target samples.This is because the 3D mesh of the satellite and the camera parameters are the same in different domains.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimThe quote only partly states this claim.
Interpretationown dataThe performance degradation of models without geometrical constraints can be ascribed to annotation noise in pseudo labels.
“The performance degradation can be ascribed to the annotation noise in pseudo labels.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S4 (based). May combine two claims.
PremisereasoningDue to illumination variations and material discrepancies, the texture of the satellite is not domain-agnostic, while the geometrical model is the same for the source and target samples.
“However, due to illumination variations and material discrepancies, the texture of satellite is not domain-agnostic, while the geometrical model are the same for the source and target samples.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing).
Interpretationnone givenOnly the predicted heatmaps are used to generate pseudo poses, while the predicted masks are ignored.
“One apparent limitation of our method is that only the predicted heatmaps are used to generate pseudo poses in Sec.III-E, while the predicted masks are ignored.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claimThe quote only partly states this claim.
Interpretationown dataThe proposed method achieves superior performance in satellite pose estimation.
“The experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves superior performance.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimClassified as probably not a substantial claim.
Interpretationnone givenThe satellite is represented sparsely using a set of keypoints.
“Another limitation would be the sparse representation of the satellite using a set of keypoints.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimClassified as probably not a substantial claim. May combine two claims.
Interpretationnone givenThe implementations of the projection function F and the rendering function R are non-differentiable and performed offline.
“The third limitation of this work is that the implementations of the projection function F and the rendering function R are non-differentiable and performed offline.”
Quote in the paperSubstantial claimProbably not a substantial claim: may not pass S3 (load-bearing).
InterpretationreasoningPose estimation could be less stable when keypoints are invisible due to truncation, low light, or high reflection.
“Note that the pose estimation could be less stable when these keypoints are invisible due to truncation, low light, or high reflection.”
Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim
The authors state this as an assumption.
The poses in the source and target domains are sampled from the same distribution.
“We assume that the poses in the source and target domains are sampled from the same distribution.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
The texture-less 3D mesh M of the satellite is given.
“We assume the texture-less 3D mesh M of the satellite is given.”
The paper relies on this without support.
The geometrical constraints used in the self-training framework are domain-agnostic.
“This paper explores the domain-agnostic geometrical constraints to achieve unsupervised domain adaptation in satellite pose estimation.”
The authors state this as an assumption.
The target poses can be treated as latent variables in the self-training framework.
“The task is formulated as a minimization problem in a self-training framework by taking the target poses as latent variables.”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Spacecraft pose estimation networks are exclusively trained on synthetic images because acquiring large sets of real images is difficult.
“Due to the difficulty of acquiring large sets of real images, spacecraft pose estimation networks are exclusively trained on synthetic ones.”
From Domain Generalization for In-Orbit 6D Pose Estimation (2025) · cites this paper as [16]
The Introduction says that collecting and annotating real spacecraft images is difficult and that recent deep models are therefore trained on synthetic images. But “exclusively” overstates this: the Conclusion describes the paper’s own self-training method, which also uses target-domain images during training. The indexed passages do not provide page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSynthetic spacecraft images do not capture the illumination conditions encountered in orbit.
“because those images do not capture the illumination conditions encountered in orbit”
From Domain Generalization for In-Orbit 6D Pose Estimation (2025) · cites this paper as [16]
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports a gap between synthetic and real spacecraft images and identifies challenging illumination as a problem. The Dataset and Metrics section (page unavailable) describes lightbox and sunlamp images designed to approximate Earth light and sunlight, but does not establish that synthetic images fail to capture illumination conditions encountered in orbit. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBoth HRNet and Lite-HRNet have been used in spacecraft pose estimation pipelines.
“Both HRNet [25] and Lite-HRNet [69] have been used in spacecraft pose estimation pipelines [16, 40].”
From Domain Generalization for In-Orbit 6D Pose Estimation (2025) · cites this paper as [16]
The Runtime Performance section reports replacing the pose-estimation pipeline’s backbone with HRNet and gives results for HRNet-W32 in Table IV. Our copy does not report using Lite-HRNet, so it supports only the HRNet part of the claim. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredMany researchers have adopted approaches that combine keypoints detection with existing Perspective-n-Point (PnP) pose estimation solvers.
“Consequently, many researchers [8,9,11,14-16] have adopted approaches that combine keypoints detection with existing Perspective-n-Point (PnP) pose estimation solvers.”
From Pose Estimation for Cross-Domain Non-Cooperative Spacecraft Based on Spatial-Aware Keypoints Regression (2024) · cites this paper as [11]
Pose estimation networks trained on synthetic images face a domain gap and do not generalize to real images.
“Due to these mismatches between the synthetic and real domains, those solutions encounter significant generalization issues.”
From Domain Generalization for In-Orbit 6D Pose Estimation (2025) · cites this paper as [16]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Table IV labels degree-valued errors as radians
MinorTable IV labels its rotation-error columns in radians, while Table II labels the corresponding errors in degrees. The matching sunlamp values, 4.696 and 4.6960, show that Table IV has not converted those values to radians.
“Et [m] Er [rad] Spose [-] Et [m] Er [rad] Spose [-] HRNet-W32 [66] 4 28.01 1.69 36.0 0.218 12.259 0.253 0.119 8.259 0.163 HRFormer-S [55] 4 8.19 1.53 57.1 0.204 10.505 0.221 0.096 4.696 0.099”
“Et [m] Eq [ • ] S [-] Et [m] Er [ • ] S [-]”
Adversarial training does not halve scores in every round
MinorThe claimed halving does not hold for both domains in every round. For example, at round 0 the sunlamp score decreases from 0.8651 for G1 to 0.6576 for G2, substantially less than a halving.
“For each round, model G reduces the scores by half for both domains.”
“G 1 √ 0 0 1.0069 36.08530.7952 0.9986 39.3665 0.8651 1 0.8524 21.7186 0.5180 0.9242 30.2367 0.6861 2 0.9339 24.4870 0.5691 0.9738 29.0898 0.6846 G 2 √ √ 0 0 0.2793 20.6284 0.4251 0.5211 32.1571 0.6576”
Geometrical-constraint model does not improve every metric
MinorThe text says G1_4 is worse than G1_5 in all three metrics on both domains. In Table II, G1_4 has a slightly lower lightbox translation error at round 1: 0.2342 m versus 0.2346 m.
“In terms of three metrics on both domains, models G 1 4 and G 2 4 show degraded performance compared to G 1 5 and G 2 5 , respectively.”
“G 4 √ 5 0 0.3235 16.6921 0.2865 0.2043 8.9460 0.1873 1 0.2342 11.1159 0.2386 0.1310 6.3235 0.1310 2 0.2310 11.7523 0.2463 0.1104 5.2222 0.1103 G 5 √ √ 5 0 0.3235 16.6921 0.2865 0.2043 8.9460 0.1873 1 0.2346 10.8023 0.2302”
Target joint distribution uses the source-image conditional
MinorEquation (3) factorizes the target-image joint distribution using the conditional probability of a source image. Equation (2) explicitly distinguishes the source- and target-image conditionals, so the stated factorization does not represent the target joint distribution.
“P (I t , R t , t t ) = P (I s |R t , t t )P (R t , t t )”
“P (I s |R s , t s ) ̸ = P (I t |R s , t s )(2)”
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Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision
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Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation
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Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation
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EfficientDet: Scalable and Efficient Object Detection
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“SPNv2 [58] is based on EfficientDet [59] and comprises three prediction heads: the EfficientPose head [60] for object presence, bounding box, target rotation and translation; the heatmap head for the 2D heatmaps; the segmentation head for the binary mask of the satellite.”
MethodDomain-Adversarial Training of Neural Networks
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Structure-from-Motion Revisited
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Deep High-Resolution Representation Learning for Visual Recognition
Wang, J., Sun, K., Cheng, T., Jiang, B., Deng, C., Zhao, Y., Liu, D., Mu, Y., Tan, M., Wang, X., et al. (2021) · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1109/tpami.2020.2983686 · Cited by 4,894 · see citing works
EPnP: An Accurate O(n) Solution to the PnP Problem
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Albumentations: fast and flexible image augmentations
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CyCADA: Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptation
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Pixelwise View Selection for Unstructured Multi-View Stereo
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PoseCNN: A Convolutional Neural Network for 6D Object Pose Estimation in Cluttered Scenes
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Learning to Adapt Structured Output Space for Semantic Segmentation
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Domain Adaptive Faster R-CNN for Object Detection in the Wild
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Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation via Class-Balanced Self-training
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A review of space robotics technologies for on-orbit servicing
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Fixing Weight Decay Regularization in Adam
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Unsupervised Domain Adaptation with Residual Transfer NetworksPreprint
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SSD-6D: Making RGB-Based 3D Detection and 6D Pose Estimation Great Again
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A survey of unsupervised deep domain adaptation
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Complete solution classification for the perspective-three-point problem
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Real-Time Seamless Single Shot 6D Object Pose Prediction
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NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view ReconstructionPreprint
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Bidirectional Learning for Domain Adaptation of Semantic Segmentation
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Adaptive batch normalization for practical domain adaptation
Li, Y., Wang, N., Shi, J., Hou, X., & Liu, J. (2018) · Pattern Recognition · doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2018.03.005 · Cited by 601 · see citing works
Uncertainty-Driven 6D Pose Estimation of Objects and Scenes from a Single RGB Image
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DPOD: 6D Pose Object Detector and Refiner
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Self-citationGDR-Net: Geometry-Guided Direct Regression Network for Monocular 6D Object Pose Estimation
Wang, G., Manhardt, F., Tombari, F., & Ji, X. (2021) · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings - IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/cvpr46437.2021.01634 · Cited by 468 · see citing works
CosyPose: Consistent Multi-view Multi-object 6D Pose Estimation
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CosyPose: Consistent multi-view multi-object 6D pose estimationPreprint
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Unbiased Mean Teacher for Cross-domain Object Detection
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Segmentation-Driven 6D Object Pose Estimation
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Adaptive Wing Loss for Robust Face Alignment via Heatmap Regression
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Satellite Pose Estimation Challenge: Dataset, Competition Design, and Results
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“As suggested by Kisantal et al. [11], the PnP-based methods significantly outperform direct regression in monocular satellite pose estimation.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSpacecraft pose estimation dataset (speed)
Sharma, S., Park, T. H., & D'Amico, S. (2026) · Stanford Digital Repository · doi:10.25740/dz692fn7184 · Cited by 304
EPOS: Estimating 6D Pose of Objects With Symmetries
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Single-Stage 6D Object Pose Estimation
Hu, Y., Fua, P., Wang, W., & Salzmann, M. (2020) · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings - IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/cvpr42600.2020.00300 · Cited by 218 · see citing works
RemoveDEBRIS: An in-orbit active debris removal demonstration mission
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Satellite Pose Estimation with Deep Landmark Regression and Nonlinear Pose Refinement
Chen, B., Cao, J., Parra, A., & Chin, T.-J. (2019) · 2019 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision Workshop (ICCVW) · doi:10.1109/iccvw.2019.00343 · Cited by 203 · see citing works
Neural Network-Based Pose Estimation for Noncooperative Spacecraft Rendezvous
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“HigherHR-Net [14]+EPnP [14] directly regresses the keypoints from the images and then estimates the poses using EPnP [14].”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialHRFormer: High-Resolution Transformer for Dense Prediction
Yuan, Y., Fu, R., Huang, L., Lin, W., Zhang, C., Chen, X., & Wang, J. (2021) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2110.09408 · Cited by 178 · see citing works
SPEED+: Next-Generation Dataset for Spacecraft Pose Estimation across Domain Gap
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PVNet: Pixel-Wise Voting Network for 6DoF Object Pose Estimation
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Style Augmentation: Data Augmentation via Style Randomization
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Augmented Autoencoders: Implicit 3D Orientation Learning for 6D Object Detection
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Pose estimation of an uncooperative spacecraft from actual space imagery
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Robust multi-task learning and online refinement for spacecraft pose estimation across domain gap
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“We take multiple rounds to optimize (11) and then compare our method with KRN [13], SPNv2 [60], and top-performing methods in SPEC2021.”
MethodMulti-Path Learning for Object Pose Estimation Across Domains
Sundermeyer, M., Durner, M., Puang, E. Y., Márton, Z.-C., Vaškevičius, N., Arras, K. O., & Triebel, R. (2020) · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings - IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/cvpr42600.2020.01393 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
EfficientPose: Scalable single-person pose estimation
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“Over the last two decades, numerous relative navigation systems have been proposed based on LiDARs [4], [5] and cameras [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11].”
BackgroundA Model-Based 3D Template Matching Technique for Pose Acquisition of an Uncooperative Space Object
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Satellite Pose Estimation via Single Perspective Circle and Line
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Self-citationOcclusion-Aware Self-Supervised Monocular 6D Object Pose Estimation
Wang, G., Manhardt, F., Liu, X., Ji, X., & Tombari, F. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1109/tpami.2021.3136301 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Towards Robust Learning-Based Pose Estimation of Noncooperative Spacecraft
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Vision-Based Pose Estimation for Textureless Space Objects by Contour Points Matching
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Revisiting Monocular Satellite Pose Estimation With Transformer
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A brief review on in-orbit refueling projects and critical techniques
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Edge Enhanced Implicit Orientation Learning With Geometric Prior for 6D Pose Estimation
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Uncooperative Spacecraft Relative Navigation With LIDAR-Based Unscented Kalman Filter
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A Gaussian measurement model for local interest point based 6 DOF pose estimation
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Challenges for Monocular 6-D Object Pose Estimation in Robotics
Thalhammer, S., Bauer, D., Hönig, P., Weibel, J.-B., García‐Rodríguez, J., & Vincze, M. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Robotics · doi:10.1109/tro.2024.3433870 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
PVSPE: A pyramid vision multitask transformer network for spacecraft pose estimation
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6D Object Pose Estimation from Approximate 3D Models for Orbital Robotics
Ulmer, M., Durner, M., Sundermeyer, M., Stoiber, M., & Triebel, R. (2023) · 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) · doi:10.1109/iros55552.2023.10341511 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
SU-Net: pose estimation network for non-cooperative spacecraft on-orbit
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Self-citationEnhancing object pose estimation for RGB images in cluttered scenes
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SPTN: Transformer-based spacecraft pose estimation network for space objects tracking
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A comprehensive study on PnP-based pipeline for pose estimation of noncooperative satellite
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Feature-aided pose estimation approach based on variational auto-encoder structure for spacecrafts
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Predicting uncertainty in vision-based satellite pose estimation using deep evidential regression
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Spacecraft Homography Pose Estimation with Single-Stage Deep Convolutional Neural Network
Chen, S., Yang, W., Wang, W., Mai, J., Liang, J., & Zhang, X. (2024) · Sensors · doi:10.3390/s24061828 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
SF‐YOLO: A Novel YOLO Framework for Small Object Detection in Aerial Scenes
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High-accuracy real-time satellite pose estimation for in-orbit applications
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Self-citationZhang, Y., You, L., Yang, L., Zhang, Z., Nie, X., & Zhang, B. (2024) · IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW) · doi:10.1109/cvprw63382.2024.00678 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Revisiting the Domain Gap Issue in Non-cooperative Spacecraft Pose Tracking
Liu, K., & Yu, Y. (2024) · IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW) · doi:10.1109/cvprw63382.2024.00680 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Robust and efficient single-CNN-based spacecraft relative pose estimation from monocular images
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Neural-Based Compression Scheme for Solar Image Data
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Domain Generalization for In-Orbit 6D Pose Estimation
Legrand, A., Detry, R., & De Vleeschouwer, C. (2025) · Journal of Aerospace Information Systems · doi:10.2514/1.i011498 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“[16] further explored the use of adversarial techniques by using Cycle-GAN [36] to train the network on semi-real images, and self-training.”
MethodWang, Y., Maestrini, M., Zexu, Z., Massari, M., & Lizia, P. D. (2025) · Aerospace Science and Technology · doi:10.1016/j.ast.2025.110338 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Feng, S., Dong-Yan, J., Cui, W., Wang, T., & Ma, M. (2025) · IEEE Sensors Journal · doi:10.1109/jsen.2025.3615727 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Test-Time Adaptation for Keypoint-Based Spacecraft Pose Estimation Based on Predicted-View Synthesis
Pérez-Villar, J. I. B., García‐Martín, Á., Bescós, J., & SanMiguel, J. C. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems · doi:10.1109/taes.2024.3410956 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Han, B., Wang, C., Zhang, X. M., Zhao, Z., Zhai, Z., Liu, J., Liu, N., & Chen, X. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems · doi:10.1109/taes.2024.3479199 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Event-RGB fusion for spacecraft pose estimation under harsh lighting
Jawaid, M., Märtens, M., & Chin, T.-J. (2025) · Aerospace Science and Technology · doi:10.1016/j.ast.2025.111039 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Keypoints Filtrating Nonlinear Refinement in Spatial Target Pose Estimation with Deep Learning
Zhong, L., Chen, S., Jin, Z. J., Guo, P., & Yang, X. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics · doi:10.1109/tii.2024.3417226 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Online Test-Time Adaptation for On-Orbit Noncooperative Spacecraft Pose Estimation
Feng, S., Wang, T., Guo, Y., & Qiu, J. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems · doi:10.1109/taes.2025.3623610 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationA Comprehensive Approach for Gearbox Fault Detection and Diagnosis Using Sequential Neural Networks
Sobha, P., Xavier, M., & Chandran, P. (2023) · IEEE Conference on Prognostics and Health Management · doi:10.1109/icphm57936.2023.10194222 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Khan, I., Shaheryar, M., Din, F. U., Ishtiaq, U., & Popa, I. (2025) · Fractal and Fractional · doi:10.3390/fractalfract9030164 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
How Important are Data Augmentations to Close the Domain Gap for Object Detection in Orbit?
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Self-citationThree-stage training for cross-domain pose estimation of non-cooperative spacecraft
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Joint Optimization of the 3D Model and 6D Pose for Monocular Pose Estimation
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A review of fine-grained object perception in extreme space environments
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TAP-Track: Generalizable Spacecraft Pose Tracking by Tracking Any Points
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ColonAdapter: Geometry Estimation Through Foundation Model Adaptation for Colonoscopy
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Exploiting Diffusion Priors for Generalizable Few-Shot Satellite Image Semantic Segmentation
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Uncooperative Spacecraft Pose Estimation With Normalized Segmentation Coordinate Space
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Real-Time Long-Range Object Tracking Based on Ensembled Model
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FastPose-ViT: A Vision Transformer for Real-Time Spacecraft Pose Estimation
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Self-citation融合多任务学习与混合域自适应的端到端空间目标位姿估计方法(特邀)
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Self-citationSelf-Supervised Vision Transformers for Spacecraft Pose Estimation Across Domain Shift
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Self-citationStructure-guided diffusion for uncertainty-aware 3D keypoint detection of non-cooperative spacecraft
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Uncertainty-aware monocular spacecraft pose estimation with covariance-weighted keypoints
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- Authors
- Wang, Z., Chen, M., Guo, Y., Li, Z., & Yu, Q.
- Affiliations
- National University of Defense Technology (CN)
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- Venue
- IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
- Published
- 2024-06
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 2500-2514
- ISSN
- 0018-9251 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-9603
- 2371-9877
- OpenAlex
- W4322731048
- Semantic Scholar
- 8bd40fbd7e99cc01e05f44e6d45ee19d75664635
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 5
- FWCI
- 7.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (61801491, 61972435, U20A20185)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Space Satellite Systems and Control
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Advanced Neural Network Applications
- Keywords
- satellite pose estimation, unsupervised domain adaptation, self-training, geometric constraints, 2D keypoint detection, pseudo-labeling, fine-grained segmentation, satellite imagery, annotation cost reduction
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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